Did you know

Reporters Without Borders said in it’s 2005 special report titled “Xinhua: the world’s biggest propaganda agency”, that “Xinhua remains the voice of the sole party”, “particularly during the SARS epidemic, Xinhua has for last few months been putting out news reports embarrassing to the government, but they are designed to fool the international community, since they are not published in Chinese.”

An Chinese school teacher’s account of Yushu Earthquake (2)

At 2:00am I rode my motorcycle back to town. In the city I saw the rescue team still working to save people, but I was angry at the fact that only a few people were working, while a lot of rescue team members spent their time chatting and laughing. The locals were telling me, “They were on the building since noon hour. And now it is night and nothing has changed.” They are not saving people but doing a show of saving people.

In addition, many statements made were false. One reporter was telling a lie right in front of us: She said that now it is 2:00am and the rescue team is still working on saving people. Another reporter from a different TV station said that now it is 3am and the rescue team is still working tirelessly to save people. That is a big fat lie! The so-called rescue team, a total less than 10 people, has been on top of a building since lunch hour and has not moved a single stone. The victims under the building were calling for help when suddenly a fire started from inside the building and then was followed by silence. The rescue team did not even try to extinguish the fire!

They were here talking about saving people and did not go anywhere else. My students were all under the collapsed building, but they did not go there. However they said that they went. Honestly, we did not have any rescue team at all.
Plenty of Food and Water for the Rescue Teams but not for the Victims

On May 15, the rescue team did not save any victims. I saw them standing on the same building. At other places, only the locals were saving their relatives or friends. When I rode my motorcycle around the city to look for food, water, tents and quilts, I asked many police for these items. But the police officers all said they had nothing to give away. By then, it was almost noon and the roads were filled with vehicles from adjacent counties. The cars and trucks were loaded with food, tents etc,. Unfortunately, they were all for private usage.

The rescue team stationed above the race track had plenty of food and water. The people from the expedition team, or other rescue teams from certain units, also stayed at the stadium and had plenty food and water. Many families here did not have a tent to sleep in. After I came back from scouting, I found many families were putting up tents. I asked them where they got their tents. They said that they robbed others. By then the street was blocked with vehicles and all the goods on the pickups and trucks were being taken.

Later on, I rode the motorcycle around, but I did not see any more trucks with goods because of the traffic jam. Nothing was moving.(to be cont’d)